Ziva, a 9-year-old falcon, is on a strict diet. She has one meal a day, in the afternoon, and before she eats, she has to stand on a scale. If she’s too heavy, she gets a little less food than the day before. But her weight doesn’t usually fluctuate much; she generally tips the scales at less than 30 ounces.

The raptor is one of the Air Force Academy’s 11 performing birds of prey, handled and trained by a team of 12 cadet falconers. Each afternoon, under the supervision of master falconer Sam Dollar, the cadets weigh each bird, carefully monitoring and charting their respective weights before feeding them their daily ration of quail meat — about 10% of their body weight.

Weight maintenance, Dollar said, is a delicate balance.

“If they’re too fat, they don’t want to fly,” he said. “If they’re too light, then they’re too weak to fly.”

The birds’ diet and exercise regimen is similar to an athlete’s, Dollar said.

“It’s helpful to think of them (like athletes),” he said. “The more they exercise, the more food they need to build muscle.”

The academy’s flying mascots have been performing for cheering throngs of Falcons fans since 1956, according to the academy website. Their aerobatic exhibitions are a staple of Air Force home football games, and they appear at various other sporting contests and civic events.

Ziva is a gyr-saker hybrid, carefully bred to combine the intimidating size of the gyrfalcon with the aerobatic ability of the saker. As she awaits her daily training session, she sits on the gloved forearm of her handler, Cadet 3rd Class Skylar Hartley.

“As you work with the falcons, their individual characteristics start to show themselves,” said Hartley, one of two cadets assigned to Team Ziva. “They all have their own personalities. It’s pretty funny.”

For Ace, one of the team’s oldest birds, flying involves an element of play, the cadet falconers said. He seems to take joy in soaring and diving, during training as well as performances.

Or, as Hartley put it, “He can be a bit of a showoff.”

The falcons, which range in age from 2 to 14 years, have traits and characteristics that make them unique. Nova, a female white-phased gyrfalcon, is the largest of the group. (The gyr is the largest of the falcon species, and females are typically one-third larger than males.) Karena, a gyr-peregrine mix, is one of the more aggressive birds. Odin, whose bloodline can be traced to Norway, is one of the more curious birds.

Many of the cadet handlers had little or no experience with birds before coming to the Academy, they said.

“I’ve had a dog before, and a fish,” said Dej Bukovac, Class of 2025. “But never a bird.”

Most cadets said their first exposure to the world of falconry was during Blue Rush, a kind of fall bazaar that exposes first-year cadets to the academy’s various clubs and organizations.

“I saw the falcons at Blue Rush, and I thought, ‘This could be interesting and fun,’” said second-year cadet Sara Schofield. “And I was right.”

Falconry candidates undergo a weekslong tryout process that includes a raptor licensing exam on biology, feeding habits and health care of birds of prey. The minimum passing exam score is 80%.

At the end of the academic year, four cadets are chosen to replace the senior falconers who were lost to graduation. The four cadets from Hartley’s class were picked from an initial group of about 50 hopefuls, she said.

Despite the fact that they train year-round, the threat of losing a falcon is real and omnipresent, according to the handlers.

“Even though they’re raised in captivity, they’re still wild animals,” Bukovac said.

During training sessions and performances, the falconers attach three different tracking devices to the raptor: a telemetry device, a GPS and a bell.

“A common hunting tactic for them is to fly toward the sun, and then dive back down, so sometimes we’re a little blinded by the sun and can’t see them coming,” said Elena Castaneda, a senior. “But with the bell, we can hear them.”

Second-year cadets are typically the ones who release the bird from the top of Falcon stadium. They maintain radio contact with their teammates on the ground, and at the moment of the release, they call, “Bird away!”

When a Navy fighter jet lands on an aircraft carrier, steel arresting cables are spanned across the landing area to bring the plane to a near-immediate stop. On the rare occasion that a pilot overshoots the landing area, the plane briefly touches down on the flight deck, then takes off again and circles around for another try.

The falcon’s aerial performance operates on a similar principle. A falconry team member stands on the football field, swinging a lure — made to resemble the kind of prey a bird would hunt in the wild — in large circles to attract the bird’s attention. Seeing what it believes to be its next meal, the falcon swoops in after the lure, diving at speeds exceeding 70 mph.

At the last moment, the falconer pulls the bait away from the bird’s grasp. Undaunted and without pause, the falcon climbs back into the sky and circles back for another shot at the “food.” After the bird has made several runs at the prey, the handler releases the lure and the falcon claims its prize. A small parachute, connected to the lure, deploys to slow things down.

The practice sessions are designed to provide consistency for the birds, so their performance doesn’t vary, even when they’re surrounded by thousands of screaming football fans.

The Air Force Academy boasts more than 90 extracurricular clubs, including Broadcast Club, Mock Trial and the parachute jump team Wings of Blue. But the academy falconers said they wouldn’t trade their club experience for any other.

Fans go wild when the raptors soar around the stadium. The falcons are an object of awe for children and adults alike. And as conversation starters go, it’s hard to beat a large, razor-taloned bird of prey perched on a gloved forearm.

“There aren’t many places where you’re allowed to handle birds like this,” Bukovac said. “I mean, how many colleges have a Falconry Club?”